


I Know What You Did Last Summer (Darling, We Count Our Kisses in the Rain)

by ArtsyDeath



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Arranged Marriage, Barebacking, Breaking Up & Making Up, Complicated Relationships, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, Dubious Morality, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Female Friendship, Female Harry Potter, First Dates, Fluff and Smut, Infertility, Infidelity, Multi, Oral Sex, Pegging, Polyamory, Porn With Plot, Power Dynamics, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Kink, Rival Relationship, Rough Sex, Threesome - F/F/M, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-08-13 19:27:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20179486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtsyDeath/pseuds/ArtsyDeath
Summary: When Harry is nineteen, following the wake of the war, she has a brief bout of rebellion in the muggle world where she meets a woman by the name of Aster who kisses her desperately at the eve of her marriage.Almost five years later she meets Astoria Greengrass, the wife of Draco Malfoy, a man who only days earlier kissed Harry beneath the mistletoe at Malfoy Manor's yearly Yule Ball.-Or: only Harry could get herself into these situations, really.





	1. Aster

Harry stretches out, rolling her shoulders as the music of the wedding reception turns into something smoother and she leans back, taking a generous sip of the red wine Fleur had recommended to her.

It’s good wine, Harry decides, watching with a fond curl of her mouth as Hermione and Ron swayed together to the music long past the last guest had stumbled their way out of the tent and the sun started climbing its way at the horizon in a stretch of pink and golden orange.

-

Harry admits herself restless at the end of the war.

And maybe it doesn’t help that everyone else seems to have everything figured out.

“Of course you’re restless,” Ginny comments when she brings it up after stopping by after her training, towel wiping over her sweaty brow as she straightened up, all red hair and freckled nose. “You’ve had this huge expectation on you for the entirety of your life and now you’re, well, _here_. Better start figuring out what you want to do next, Potter,” she teases, bumping her shoulder against hers, but her eyes are sympathetic.

Harry doesn’t want to think of it was being left behind but maybe that’s a little bit of how she feels when Ron and Hermione leaves for their honeymoon and she finds herself in a too big house without anyone to keep her company.

It’s been almost two years since the end of the war and Harry feels stuck.

“Then unstick yourself, Potter,” she tells herself, staring hard into the mirror one Monday evening as she grabs for the scissors beside the mirror.

-

The muggle hairdresser Harry visits in the wake of it looks none too impressed when she guiltily pulls the cap on her head off to reveal a messy disaster.

“Oh honey,” she sighs and Harry grumbles, sinking deeper into the chair, eyes averted from her mirage as the woman worked to save it.

There’s music in the background and there’s an elderly man being taken care of another woman two seats down but other than that it’s pretty empty and Harry finds her eyes scanning over the different products, fancy names and things she’s never found interest or bothered with during her nineteen years of life.

Fingers drags through her hair, measuring her fringe down.

“You’re so pale,” the woman says with a pop of her gum. “If a change is what you’re looking for why not dye it? Give yourself some colour.”

“Dye it?” Harry echoes nonplussed.

-

Harry stares into the mirror and her electric blue hair with a faint notion of horror that evening but then her mouth twitches and she laughs and laughs and _laughs_.

“Sirius would have loved it,” she gasps to Kreacher who peers out at her from around the corner with utmost suspicion.

-

It’s strangely freeing, Harry decides, gliding forward in her new Heeley’s inside the muggle shopping center with the hairdresser, a twenty-two-year-old woman who’d introduced herself as Maddy and who found Harry’s sense of fashion atrocious, her heels clicking sharply against the marble ground.

“What are you from, the forties?” she’d asked unimpressed when Harry appeared back at her doorstep two days later to cheerily thank her for the dye job in a pair of Dudley’s old castoffs and a stiff brown jacket she wasn’t sure where she’d gotten it from.

Maddy is opinionated, she’s young, she’s never experienced war and she complains endlessly about her parents and her girlfriend.

Harry finds herself charmed.

“You want some ice cream?” she asks as her gaze snags on the colourful shop.

“Vanilla,” Maddy agrees without hesitation. “Three scoops.”

Maddy wears pink and large sunglasses despite being inside and golden rings dangling from her ears, her shirt dipping into a generous V.

Her hair is black long and smooth like liquid and she smells of artificial sweetness.

Harry kinda don’t want to let go of her.

-

“You need to go out more,” Maddy tells her where she’d curled herself up on the couch with a magazine spread out in her lap, watching Harry carefully haul the last boxes into her new apartment. “I’m half-convinced you’ve spent your life under a rock.”

“Private school,” Harry grunts, enjoying the burn in her arms as she dropped the last box onto the pile of others labelled **Living Room** in pink sharpie that was hard to see against the brown.

“It explains so much about you,” Maddy sighs, giving her a look of consideration, brown eyes sliding over Harry’s body to a raised brow. “Why don’t you tag along with us next week? Moe promised she’d take me somewhere fun.”

“You sure?” Harry asks in surprise.

Maddy shrugs. “As long as you agree to a make-over beforehand,” she says. “Moe’s curious about you anyway and she’s bringing a cousin of hers so you’d be doing us a favour.”

Harry wonders idly if four wheeling is better than third wheeling.

“You got any wine?” Maddy asks as she closes the magazine shut. “I’m starving.”

-

Maddy’s idea of a make-over involves shoving a pair of Moe’s old black jeans into her face and then wrestling her into an outrageously bubble-gum pink shirt that makes Harry snort-giggle when she sees herself in the mirror with the electric blue hair sticking up wildly on her head.

“You take yourself far too seriously,” Maddy tells her with a smug little curl of her red lips, almost a head shorter than Harry and her total opposite in her tight leather skirt and red sweater and already hauling an entire bottle of wine from her bag which she makes Harry fetch glasses for as she starts rummaging about for the make-up.

It turns out that most of it is for herself but she does take the time to smooth a generous amount to cover the fading scar on Harry’s forehead and golden glitter over her eyelids.

“There,” she says with some finality.

Harry is fairly certain she looks ridiculous but she really can’t find herself to care when her jaw is aching from smiling, warm from the wine and somehow being bullied into applying eyeliner on the other as if it was something she was supposed to know how to do.

-

“Sorry we’re late,” Maddy drawls as Harry scratches awkwardly at the back of her neck. “It turns ‘Ry here can’t apply eyeliner for shit.”

Moe, it turns out, is a lazy-looking girl with a bowl-cut that hangs low into her eyes and a proper sort of style in her button-up and flashy suspenders with a leather jacket over, purple lips pulling into a smile as Maddy practically wedged herself up beside her, arm draping over her shoulders with familiarity.

“’s fine, babe,” Moe says, stretching out her free hand. “So you’re Ry, eh? Been hearing a lot about you.”

“Somehow that does not reassure me a bit,” Harry says pleasantly as she clasps the other’s warm hand. “I like your jacket,” she says. “My godfather had something like it.”

“Sounds like someone with style,” Moe hums before jerking her head to the girl who’d been standing scowling at her side. “Grumpy here is my cousin Aster – she’s staying with us for now since there’s some family drama or whatnot going about. But don’t take her stinginess to heart.”

“I told you my name is-”

“Aster,” Moe agrees lazily to a soundless snarl and Harry feels for her, she does.

She’d gotten so used to hearing Ry shouted after her that she’d stared blankly at the teller when visiting Gringotts to exchange some money.

-

Aster a pretty girl, brown haired and somehow proper in her blue dress and she stands out something painfully inside the beat of the club Moe brings them to where Harry is somehow one of the least outrageous with her blue hair and pink shirt and golden smudged eyelids.

They make for an odd duo where they sit – Aster with shot of something the bartender had promised would _put some hair on her chest_ which had garnered a long look as she snatched it up and a refusal to take a single sip.

Harry on the other hand is nursing a tall frothy thing with swirls of pink and blue that had been served with a wink.

She couldn’t remember seeing the girl at school but Harry had witnessed Ron enough times in muggle settings to pick out a witch when she saw one and she is kinda grateful to Maddy for covering up her scar even if her new slanting fringe already did half the work.

“It’s just whisky,” she hears herself saying, feeling a brief bout of pity for the other.

Blue eyes swing towards her, suspicion in her gaze, and Harry decides that if nothing else the girl was painfully Slytherin by that reaction alone.

“You want a taste of mine?” she offers. “It’s good – if a bit sweet.”

Moe and Maddy are both in the middle of things and Harry had already witnessed Maddy drinking a heavyset dude under the table with a flick of her hair and a smirk that said _bring it on_.

For such a small thing she got real competitive.

The music pounds loud and when no answer is forthcoming Harry decides that it is likely the other hadn’t heard her, was refusing to admit to it and was making a carefully crafted decision in how to best answer despite that.

So she slides deeper into the boot, close enough that their elbows bumped together and pulling her drink with her. “Here,” she says over the music. “Try this.”

“Why should I?” Aster demands but she’s alone and out of her comfort zone and if there’s anything Maddy has taught Harry it’s that sometimes embracing it is the only way to go.

So she raises a brow and waits until the other huffs and decidedly pushes the straw away before raising it up to take a brave swig of it.

Harry watches in amusement as one swallow becomes three and then five, a pink tongue darting over her upper lip to catch the frothy mixture there.

She’s not overly worried – it wasn’t a strong drink, more sugar than alcohol really, but it’s kinda sweet to see the way Aster sorta clears her throat as she reluctantly pushes it back to her.

“Not bad,” she says with a little sniff.

Harry’s mouth twitches and she flags down a waiter to order a second one for them both.

-

One of the first things Harry realises about Maddy is that her parents, for all that they claimed to love her, was the kind that didn’t much approve about same-sex relationships.

As in, they were raging homophobic.

“It’s okay tho,” Maddy had said as she paused her rant upon catching Harry’s furrowed brow. “Because, you know, once we have the money we’re leaving, yeah? And we won’t have to hide it anymore. But we need all the money we can get and as long as me an' Moe’s living at home we’re able to save more.”

Moe’s parents were definitively the more open about it but she had five siblings and she tended to get lost in the crowd of it – at least so much Harry understood from Maddy’s chatter about everything between the earth and the sky.

But the thing is she doesn’t begrudge Maddy this time with Moe and she doesn’t mind ordering and paying for three more drinks as Aster made good work of them, clearly getting tipsy as her mood mellowed out.

“I can’t believe I’m actually here,” Aster says, looking sceptically out at the moving bodies. “Is this really mu- dancing?” She catches herself and Harry pretends not to have heard, humming a bit thoughtfully as the bas kept pounding.

“For some,” she says finally, swirling her drink idly. “There are the more proper ballroom dances, of course, but it looks fun, doesn’t it?”

Aster squints a bit suspiciously. “I suppose,” she says with clear scepticism.

“It’s not for everyone,” Harry says with an amused twitch of her lips, scanning the room and catching Maddy gyrating against Moe. “They’re probably going to be busy all night,” she says. “You want to catch some air?” she offers.

“Merlin yes please,” Aster blurts out only to slap a hand over her mouth and Harry laughs, sliding out and offering a hand that is hesitantly grasped.

Harry sidles up beside Moe and Maddy, tugging Aster close to her back. “We’ll just catch some air – text me if you need me, yeah?” she says loudly.

Moe’s gaze flashes a bit guiltily to her cousin. “You sure?” she asks.

Aster gives her a flat look over Harry’s shoulder. “I think I’ll be fine,” she says with a meaningful sort of drawl and Moe couldn’t have made the little dip of her eyes to Aster’s thigh anymore obvious.

“Yeah,” she says, flashing a grin that’s more teeth than what was necessarily polite. “Stay safe.”

“I’ll text you,” Maddy promises with a sloppy kiss to Harry’s cheek and she angles to plant one back on Maddy’s forehead in return.

“Don’t have too much fun,” she grins and Maddy giggles, allowing herself to be pulled back into Moe’s arms with a little twirl.

-

Aster inhales the crisp autumn air with relief when they escape the club and Harry slips her hands into the pocket of the jeans, glancing up at the moon above.

“It’s a twenty minute walk to my flat if you want to grab some wine and maybe watch a movie or something,” Harry offers idly, glancing down the familiar London streets. “I think I have some butternut pie in the fridge,” she adds when Aster looks to her.

The younger girl huffs. “It’s better than freezing to death here,” she says, rubbing at her arms and Harry finds herself absently wishing she had a jacket to offer.

But she only has herself so she offers her arm and Aster gives her a long look before looping her arm through it, nearly immediately melting up against Harry’s side. “How,” she asks as Harry tugs her along. “Are you so bloody warm?”

“I’ve always been hot blooded,” Harry says with some amusement as they make their way down the street together.

She feels Aster’s eyes upon her and glances at the shorter girl with a raised brow.

“You have pretty eyes, you know?” Aster says, visibly relaxing outside the club atmosphere. “I don’t think I’ve seen eyes so green before.”

Harry’s wearing lenses, her tell-tale glasses missing and her scar hidden.

She suspects it’s one of the more honest compliments she’s gotten in years – not her father’s daughter with her mother’s eyes but simply Ry, Aster’s cousin’s girlfriend’s friend.

She rather likes the taste of it.

-

Aster peers about her apartment as Harry looks through the different wine bottles – most of them cheap, one or two the kind of expensive that Ron and Hermione both would find outrageous but Harry hadn’t been able to deny herself, some more middle-range.

She picks one she’s had before and rather liked the taste of, finds some snacks and pie to go along with it and serves it all up under Aster’s watchful eyes.

“So, movie?” Harry checks.

“Yes, please,” Aster says, reaching for the bottle as Harry mentally sorted through her DVD’s. “Nothing with romance,” Aster adds after the cork popped open. “Please,” she tacks on as Harry turns towards her with a raised brow.

“That’s fine,” Harry agrees and after some deliberation reaches for Star Wars, recalling Ron’s reaction to the space travel and quite unable to help herself.

It’s late but Aster makes no sign of being tired, her eyes wide and a bit surprised, forgetting to be proper or even angry as they followed the adventure on screen, Harry hiding a smile against the rim of her glass.

“Amazing,” Aster breathes at the end of it, looking rather gobsmacked. “I had no idea…” She gives herself a little shake. “Thank you, Ry,” she says with a smile that makes her entire face warm up. “It’s been quite exhausting these last weeks but this? This was good,” she says decidedly.

“’s no problem,” Harry says contently. “There are two more movies, you know?”

“Really?” Aster asks in surprise. “Ingenious,” she murmurs, eyes drifting thoughtfully to the DVD case. “We’ve mostly been watching romance movies. Dreadfully boring, if you ask me, but Marianne is fond of them.”

It’s sorta strange to hear Moe’s full name out loud and Harry blinks at her.

“Daddy says it’s good for me but I’d just rather not,” she sighs.

“How come you’re staying there anyhow?” Harry asks curiously, taking a sip of her wine.

They’d finished most of the pie and only a handful of nuts remained at the bottom of the bowl.

“Family politics,” Aster says with a flat sort of thinning of her lips. “If I’m lucky they’ll figure it out before I go grey.”

-

They watch another movie and half-way through it Aster falls asleep on her shoulder so Harry turns it all off and carries the younger teen into her bedroom, tucking her in and placing a glass of water at the bedside table.

Somehow her apartment feels less empty – the door open just an inch or two as she cleans away the evidence of their drinks and snacking before sprawling out on her couch, pulling the fleece blanket down and over her legs.

She decides that she wouldn’t mind doing it all again.

-

Sometimes it’s just the two of them but every now and then Moe and Maddy stay to watch movies or play games to the grumbling of Aster who slowly comes to relax in her cousin’s company but who gets snippy when Moe tries to impart some sort of rule on her.

“You’re only three years older than me!” Aster snaps one such night. “Don’t turn into my bloody _sister_-“

“I am not,” Moe tries but Aster is already rising and Harry watches as she storms into her bedroom and slams the door shut and even above the music from the radio it’s easy enough to pick out the desperate attempt to muffle her sobbing.

“Aaah,” Moe sighs that ruffles her long fringe. “I keep screwing that up but promised Fe I’d keep an eye on her.”

Maddy cranes around to peer at the bedroom door, foregoing her glass entirely to take a swig of her wine bottle. “It’s not your fault. She needs to get proactive.” For some reason she looks to Harry when she says this.

“I don’t even know what this is about,” Harry says, biting down on a crisp with a little shrug.

“Her parents are trying to arrange a marriage,” Moe says bluntly as Harry blinks.

_Ah_, she thinks, mouth flattening out thoughtfully.

“She’s only eighteen, understandably upset about it all and everyone is telling her to suck it up.” Moe leans back and Maddy goes with her, Harry politely averting her eyes from the flash of red panties as she threw one leg wide over the other. “That’s why she’s staying with us – to get a bit of a pause from it all.”

“Do you think she should marry?” Harry asks curiously.

Moe tips her head, her bowl cut moving with the motion. “There are… things… to take into consideration and he's likely the best person to help her. Doesn’t make the decision any easier to accept.”

Harry’s gaze lingers on the bedroom door for a moment longer, thoughts brewing.

“When is she expected to marry?”

“In six months,” Moe says, eyes considering her for a long moment before she flashes a sharp smile. “Until then she’s all yours.”

-

There’s a lot of things Harry hasn’t experienced in life and perhaps there’s something selfish in her offer – still a bit lonely from Hermione and Ron being too invested in each other to pay her much mind and that lingering question of _what now?_ that wouldn’t quite leave her alone following the aftermath of the war.

And maybe she sees a bit of herself in Aster - a girl caught in a net not of her own making.

Whatever reason makes her extend her hand to Aster is swept away by her own laughter at the sight of the wide-eyed horror of the younger girl when the ride at the carnival starts going up up_up_, her fingers claws against the leather.

“I am never doing anything with you ever again,” Aster promises beside her as their legs dangles, the world small beneath them. “I-“

But whatever she’s about to say gets drowned in a scream as the ride abruptly unlatches, sending them hurtling towards the ground where it catches them with a swoop of adrenaline that bubbles in Harry’s belly, a familiar sort of euphoria filling her blood before they’re gently lowered to the ground and released.

Aster stumbles off and Harry catches her, an arm threading through her own to cling tight as people streamed in to take their seats.

“You-“ Aster pokes a finger into her chest. “I want one of those fluffy things-“ She points to a cotton candy stick of a child clinging tight to her father’s hand. “And I want you to win me something.”

“It wasn’t that bad, was it?” Harry hums even as she obligingly reaches for her wallet.

“I can’t feel my fingers,” Aster says flatly but her mouth is twitching and Harry counts it as a win.

The obliging tour of the ferris wheel gets saved for last and they both watches with glitter in their eyes as they rise about the spinning world of bright colours against the contrasting dark night.

“Wow,” Aster breathes beside her, a giant plushy blue ferret cradled in her arms. “It’s beautiful.”

-

They explore a butterfly park where Aster circles around the bright winged insects with wide-eyes and they take a road trip down to the sea where they take cheap diving lessons, zipped up in tight wetsuits as an old shepherd with a companion sheep by the name of Molly teaches them the does and don’ts.

They mostly float about, kicking their swim feet and watching the algae grow on the rocks just beneath the surface but afterwards they rent a sauna and melt in the heat of it.

Harry’s favourite trip is the small whisky yard they take a bumpy bus out to visit, savouring the cheese and drinks as wind tugs at their hair, green grassy fields as long as their eyes can see and only a handful of humans to interrupt the peace.

“I could live like this,” Aster says as she bites down in a piece of green cheese, eyes closing as she savoured in it.

“Mm,” Harry agrees with a content sigh.

-

Harry celebrates Christmas with Maddy who appears at her door in a slinky red dress and a drooping Santa hat on her head near midnight and sticks a package wrapped in an old newspaper into her arms.

“Merry Christmas,” she says. “Please tell me you have wine.”

She sounds exhausted, a strange state for the normally preppy girl, and Harry blinks as she closes the door behind her and, after some consideration, locks it as well.

“There’s some red in the cupb-“ But Maddy is already reaching for it, nabbing one of the bottles that had the going price of an expensive car and struggling to open it with badly hidden frustration.

Harry plucks it from her hand, twists it open and nudges her back to the couch.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asks as she serves Maddy a small glass.

“Just Mom being Mom,” Maddy says tiredly, sinking back, inhaling the scent of the wine without drinking. “I left rather abruptly,” she says, staring down at the red liquid. “I’m sorry for coming here.”

“You’re always welcome here,” Harry tells her simply. “Want to watch a movie?”

It’s not that bad, Harry thinks, watching the Prince go down on a knee to propose to the poor girl who’d been masquerading as his supposed to be real wife-to-be who happened to a near identical twin despite being born to different parents while the real supposed wife-to-be married her look-alikes best friend.

Maddy’s dabbing with a napkin, all softness for the couple to be and Harry serves them both some of Molly’s pumpkin pie.

It’s strange to think about the normal kind of problems she might have had if her parents were alive and she wonders if she’d been a bit like Maddy if it wasn’t for Tom and Albus and everything that had happened in the magical world.

It’s not quite envy but it’s hard not to wonder _what if?_

-

“Kiss me.”

Harry stares at Aster, drenched to the bone, make-up running dark beneath her eyes.

“Wha-“

But Aster reaches for her, grasping and yanking her down by the collar of her shirt and then she’s giving her little choice, cold lips pressing up against her own with desperation as Harry sucked in a startled breath.

“Ast-“ she gasps, pulling back, but Aster follows, backing her up against the door the rain falling heavy onto them both.

“They moved the wedding,” Aster gasps against her chest and Harry’s heart twists. “I’m getting married in a week, please I can’t – I can’t be locked in a loveless marriage for the rest of my life without at least being able to have been with someone I actually feel something for.”

She’s shivering, her wet dress clinging to her skin, and Harry gently places a warm hand over the trembling ones grasping at her.

“Ry-“ she nearly sobs as Harry pries her fingers off her but then her breath hitches as Harry’s hands envelopes her cheeks and tilts her head as she slants her mouth over Aster's in something softer, less desperate.

Aster shivers, her mouth parting willingly beneath Harry’s, and she hums as she licks into Aster's mouth, curling their tongues together – coaxing her to a clumsy response just as Ginny had shown her over and over, desperate to feel something before they were separated at the end of her sixth year.

She draws back, stroking a thumb over a dark smudge on a cold cheek.

“Are you sure?” Harry asks.

“Yes,” Aster breathes. “I’ve never been surer of anything in my life,” she whispers, pressing into Harry’s palm, her eyes blue and wanting.

And who is Harry to say no to that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to this! Strap yourself in because it's going to be a_ ride._
> 
> I got stuck contemplating these three together and now I'm kinda fond of the entire idea. There's just... something about Harry goofing about in the muggle world that brings me intense personal joy.
> 
> I also feel like Astoria really deserved better than she got.
> 
> I'm artsy-death on tumblr if you're about there.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


	2. Draco

”Really?” Harry blurts out in delight, cradling the phone closer to her ear with her shoulder as she sorts through the papers on her desk. “What did Moe say about it?”

_“You should have seen her, Ry,” _Maddy says. _“Dead faint – right in front of the rest of her family. We’re celebrating Christmas with them and catching up with the celebrations. I’ve never seen so many people happy about two peeps doing the deed.”_

“I do believe it’s the pay of from _doing the deed_ that’s of interest,” Harry comments in amusement.

_“Details, details,”_ Maddy’s thin voice comes through the receiver. _“It’s sorta cool though, to carry her baby. You better get your ass down here and hold my hand when they weigh me in seven months.”_

“I promise,” Harry says fondly, abandoning her papers. “I’m glad everything is working out.”

_“Me too,” _Maddy sighs. _“Going to miss the wine though but I figure I’ll save up, yeah? Buy me a good one for all the saved money from the cheap ones. Moe already promised to find me a good alcohol-free one.” _

“She’s been fussing then?” Harry inquiries.

_“She’s the fussiest,” _Maddy agrees and Harry can easily picture it. _“But she’s doing good, ya know? I think she’s really been liking the new work with the kids at the library and her boss is much less of an asshole than the last one. Woman got us invited to wine and dine an’ all, as if we were some fancy couple like that.” _

“You are a fancy couple like that,” Harry says, glancing out the fake window of her office which had been charmed to reflect the weather outside – snow slowly spiralling.

_“We’re poor fancy,” _Maddy denies. _“This lady? Upper-class. I’m half-convinced she’s trying to get a foot in, ya know? But she’s nice – been treating us both real well so I can’t complain. Gotta be happy.” _

Harry glances up, catching Ron’s raised eyebrow at the door opening.

“Hey, listen, Maddy-“

_“Work calling?” _her friend says knowingly. _“Yeah, yeah – I got it. Are you coming down to visit?”_

“I’ll try to swing by before the tenth,” Harry promises. “I’ll bring you something fun.”

_“You better,” _Maddy says. _“Moe’s cousin brought me wine. Looked rightly shocked when I told her I couldn’t drink it and then made me pie. Wasn’t anything like yours but decent, yeah? You better brings cherries, speaking of. You’ll bring cherries if I tell you I’m craving, right?”_

“Will do,” Harry promises fondly. “Take care, Mads.”

_“I do wish you wouldn’t call me that,” _Maddy sighs. _“Don’t work to death, Ry.” _

The phone clicks off and Harry drops it onto the receiver, dragging a hand through her dark hair.

“’Mione want to know if you’re still planning on heading to the Malfoy’s Yule Ball,” Ron says as he gives the door a kick shut and swings into the plush armchair opposite her desk. “I think she’s pretty upset about missing the thing, would you believe it?”

Hermione, being nine months pregnant and counting the hours to giving birth to her second child really had all the right to be upset about it.

“I was considering it,” Harry says, leaning back. “She got a message for Narcissa?”

“You know it, mate,” Ron agrees, tall and broad in a smart striped suit that spoke of George’s influence. “I never would have imagined a world where Malfoy’s mother came over to regularly dine in my own home and house but here we are.” He spreads his hands.

“You like her,” Harry says with a little grin. “She gives you _compliments._”

“Oh bugger off,” Ron snorts. “So, going or not?”

“If it’ll give Hermione some peace of mind I’ll be happy to,” Harry agrees, reaching for her cup.

“You’re a wonder,” Ron says with feeling, making Harry snort into her coffee.

-

Every now and then Harry finds herself missing the electric blue hair but she finds that she likes the girl in the mirror as well, ruffling the short dark strands up and taking the time to apply golden to her eyelids after blinking the lenses in place.

She’s gained colour from vacations and filled out with a reliable food take and she didn’t much feel like the forgotten child in the cupboard under the stairs these days.

She’s wearing a knitted red sweater over a white button-up and dark slacks, her normal boots traded for a fine pair of dark ones with a small thick heel.

It wasn’t quite the Yule Ball appropriate gear Narcissa would be wanting to see but the woman had long since accepted that Harry came and went as she wished, with some influence from Maddy who remained reliably opinionated and who’d looked frankly horrified by the fashion of the magical world when Harry had gotten enough strings to get her in on it.

Harry tucks the letter from Hermione into the inside of the dark vest with golden details, drains the last of her wine and makes sure to turn off the light to her apartment before locking it all shut tight behind her.

-

Yule Ball at the Malfoy Manor was one of those things that had become an _It Thing_ in the magical world, as per Maddy’s words when Harry had made an attempt to describe it.

It wasn’t always so, following the war, but when Harry was twenty-one she’d gotten a letter and it perked her curiosity, and then Hermione’s when she caught wind of it, and they’d ended up going together to meet the then Head of the Department of Mysteries.

People had gotten wind of the Girl-Who-Lived arsing her way out of her apartment to socialize at Malfoy Manor and, well, it had only snowballed from there.

Narcissa was a terrifyingly efficient woman and she’d true on her promise to meet the elusive woman so Harry didn’t begrudge her it but it had made her somewhat cautious of accepting any invitation without looking it up at least three times beforehand.

Hermione and Ron making friends with Narcissa was the kind of spin that had her mostly fond these days.

“Are you sure you want to go with me?” Neville asks sceptically when she loops her arms through his. “I’m not exactly Malfoy-friendly.”

“I don’t think Draco will be there,” Harry comments idly as they make their way through the snow. “And you know Narcissa likes you.”

“Narcissa is lovely,” Neville agrees. “But I suspect her son’s wife sincerely wishes me dead.”

“Astoria Greengrass?” Harry asks with some disbelief. “You’ve met her?”

Draco Malfoy’s wife was a known recluse, making next to zero public appearances and even Narcissa remained tight-lipped about her.

“Gran and her father are old friends,” Neville says with a little lopsided smile and Harry finds herself hard-caught not to admire the way he’s gained more confidence as a Professor in Herbology after finishing his apprenticeship under Professor Sprout. He had the kind of softness to him that she liked – a roundness to his belly and warmth in his grin that had gained more than one admirer.

Ginny had informed that Hannah Abbott had made a big deal of revisiting Hogwarts and seeing him there at the head table next to McGonagall.

“Well, she’s not likely to be there either,” Harry says after a pause. “She went to school with us, didn’t she?”

“She was in Ginny and Luna’s year group,” Neville agrees as they step outside into the snow and make their way to the apparition point. “I don’t think you ever met her – mostly kept to herself and her sister, I think.”

Harry, who hadn’t exactly been on steady ground with most Slytherins, merely hums.

“You or me?” Harry asks as they pause, snow spiralling down upon them.

Neville reaches out to brush some from her hair a bit absently.

“I think you’d better do it,” he says, lowering his hand. “The wards like you.”

Harry’s mouth twitches as she tightens her grip on him and twists them both along into a side-apparition.

-

“Darling!” Narcissa sweeps her into a warm hug and Harry flushes slightly at the warm reception, aware of the little sniff from the woman Narcissa had abandoned quite abruptly at the sight of her.

She might once have thought it part of whatever socialite game Narcissa played at but they’d had far too many sleepy evenings together for her to think it was anything but genuine these days and she loops her arms around the woman and gives her a squeeze back, nose tickling with the scent of soft flowery perfume.

Narcissa draws back, her blonde hair with streaks of white by her ears coiled elegantly, the fine powdery blue robes she was wearing making her look impossibly paler beneath the light above them. There’s deepening lines by her eyes but like all wizards and witches her aging was slow and if anything they only made her look all the more beautiful.

Her baby blue eyes are warm and she touches Harry’s cheek gently, pressing a kiss to the other one.

“I’m so happy you could come,” she says, before releasing her, eyes sweeping to Neville who flushes slightly. “And you as well, Professor Longbottom.”

“Please just call me Neville,” he asks of her. “Thank you for allowing me into your home.”

“Of course,” Narcissa responds instantly. “We’re honoured to have you. I hear your endeavours as to the number one Herbologist in Britain is going well.” There’s a slight teasing curl to her voice that makes Harry’s mouth twitch, eyes scanning absently over the room as Neville flushes and murmurs something in response that only makes Narcissa’s smile grow.

“You’ve truly outdone yourself, Cissa,” Harry says, eyes lingering on the fine sculpture of a peacock in ice by the drinks.

From above magic snow slowly spirals only to disappear before it could touch upon the head of the guests.

“I have, haven’t I,” Narcissa agrees to a small sight of relief from Neville when she switched attention. “How’s Hermione?” she asks as she beckons them along.

“Very pregnant,” Harry tells her, mouth twitching. “Ready to pop any day now.”

“I’m glad,” Narcissa says but there’s a touch of sadness to her eyes when she says it that makes Harry frown internally even as she reaches for the envelope she’d attached to the inside of her sweater.

“Here,” she says. “She sent this along – she was pretty upset about missing all of this.”

Narcissa takes it, thumb brushing over the scrawl of her name on the front before pocketing it.

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

-

Harry isn’t quite sure what’s going on with Narcissa but she worries so she finds herself spending the evening with the Malfoy matriarch, Neville excusing himself with a worried little frown that let her know he’d seen it to.

It involves far more socializing than she’s comfortable with but Narcissa seems happy for the distraction and that’s all that matters, Harry decides, even as she shakes hands with a man with far too much enthusiasm over meeting the Girl-Who-Lived.

“How’s your friend doing?” Narcissa asks curiously when they’re both fetching some sparkling wine. “The one in the muggle world?”

“Maddy?” Harry checks and Narcissa inclines her head. “She just found out she’s pregnant – was rightly happy about it, too.” Her mouth spreads in a smile as she recalls the phone call a couple of days earlier.

“And what about you?” Narcissa wonders.

“Me?” Harry blinks at her, taking a sip of the wine.

“Any new romance in your life?”

“Ah.” Harry scratches a bit absently at the back of her neck. “No,” she admits. “I’ve been busy with work and just…” She waves briefly with her hand.

Truthfully, save for her brief spin with Aster there hadn’t really been anyone who’d caught her eye. She’d hooked up once or twice, and she’d enjoyed it, but it hadn’t been quite the same as the whirlwind of romance that had ended with a kiss in the rain and a night of slow made love before holding the younger one as she wept against her shoulder.

Meeting Aster, loving Aster, a part of her ached for the young girl and she wonders what had become of her – if she’d found happiness in the marriage she’d been forced into.

She’d thought about asking Maddy who occasionally mentioned Moe’s cousin in passing but something always made her hesitate.

“I see,” Narcissa says delicately, taking a sip of her wine, eyes distant.

“How’s Draco?” Harry asks suddenly because she knows only one person who touches the heart of the witch beside her so thoroughly.

Narcissa’s mouth dips slightly and Harry knows she’s hit the nail on the head.

But Narcissa never gets the chance to answer, her spine straightening and warmth spilling helplessly into her gaze as the topic of their conversation stepped through the throng of people, a hand tugging almost nervously at the hem of the fine black shirt he wore beneath a robe in the latest fashion.

His hair is paler than his mother’s and he looks far more like her than his father, slimmer and shorter than Lucius had ever been with his sharp cheek bones and pink lips.

“Mother,” he greets as Harry steals Narcissa’s wine glass, stepping back and allowing them their privacy.

-

“Potter.” She looks up and back from the balcony she had claimed for herself with a polite privacy spell to discourage company.

“Malfoy,” she echoes, turning to lean back against the balcony to look at him properly as he steps forward, the spell flickering back in place behind him as he approaches her, two glasses in his hand and one being offered with a delicately raised eyebrow.

She takes it for the peace offering it is, banishing her empty one with a flick of her fingers.

“I see your proficiency with wandless magic isn’t just a rumour of the mill,” he comments idly as he steps up beside her and bends down to rest his elbows on the railing, looking over the ground on which he’d grown up.

He’d gotten rid of the heavy robe and rolled up the sleeves of the shirt beneath the stylish black suit-like thing he wore beneath it.

The snow spirals slowly down upon them from above.

“I suppose not,” Harry agrees mildly. “What are you doing here? You don’t usually make an appearance at these things.”

“Going right for my heart,” Malfoy snorts but there’s no ire in his gaze, if anything he looks tired. “Just decided I needed a change of pace.”

Harry hums dubiously.

“I hear you’re working with curses these days,” he says after a moment of silence between them.

“Suppose I do,” Harry agrees. “Put up a partnership with Bill and Fleur. Do a bit of travelling, most of it is research however.”

It had started as a hobby – returning to Grimmauld Place after moving out and finding it in exactly the state she’d left it but with Kreacher practically mad from a box he’d accidentally opened up when he’d attempted to smuggle into his bulging hoard.

The Black’s were an old family and dark and there were a fair share of dangerous things hidden inside the walls of the house despite Molly’s best attempt to rid of them.

One thing had led to another and she’d opened up a small shop to help out people and she found that she liked it – working and solving at her own pace. Bill had picked up on it and though he still worked mostly with Gringott’s and Fleur was well on her way in the French Ministry of Magic they opened their doors to her and they met every other week or so or when Harry had a particularly tricky case on her hand.

Her proficiency with wandless magic had grown and with the help of Hermione she’d given herself a crash course in runes, both things that had aided her. By channelling magic through her hands she could senses and work with the magic and she found she had an intuitive feel for what needed to be done to fix it.

“Delacour and a Weasley,” Malfoy hums. “Must be quite the business revenue.”

“What about you?” Harry asks instead of answering, hoisting herself up and turning around to let her legs dangle beside him, watching the peacocks with their flashy colours contrasting against the snowy ground as they threaded their way through inch-depth snow with long legs.

Malfoy’s long fingers stroke over the rim of his glass.

“Complicated,” he answers finally, which isn’t much of an answer at all.

“I hear you’re married these days,” Harry can’t help but press.

“Was,” he says but then his mouth twists. “Is, I guess. It’s complicated.”

“I see,” Harry says without quite seeing it at all.

He levels her with a gaze she can’t quite read. “What do you know of my marriage?” he asks suddenly.

Harry mentally elevates the entire conversation high on the list of ones she never expected to have with her former rival as she considers it.

“I know your wife is Astoria Greengrass and that you married young.”

“It was arranged,” he tells her with a little huff that might have been amusement. “Pureblood marriages are seldom about love.”

It was hard to imagine opinionated Malfoy being stuck in a marriage not of his own making – not with Narcissa who had a deep romantic bone in her body and who’d genuinely loved Lucius and had mourned his death, even if she never voiced it, aware of his sins during the war.

Hermione especially had suffered at his hands and she’d confessed during a night together that Narcissa had bowed to her, apologizing on his behalf.

“So, complicated then,” Harry agrees and his mouth twitches in agreement.

“What about you, Potter? You were dating girl-Weasley, weren’t you?”

“_Ginny_ is quite happily married to Angelina Johnson these days,” Harry tells him, legs swinging a bit absently, one hand curled around the railing. “They ended up on the same team after school and hit it up quite spectacularly. There’s never a calm moment when those two are around.”

“Quidditch nerds,” Malfoy huffs in understanding.

And he’s grown up, Harry realises as she looks at him. There’s none of the spiteful anger burning in his gaze but something quieter in its place – as if he’d made peace with the part of himself that clung to his father’s coattails in a turbulent time that rose to become a war.

“I’m godmother to one kid and expected to become it to a second one any day now,” Harry finds herself telling him.

“Granger and Weasley’s?” Malfoy asks, straightening up with a little stretch to look at her.

“Yes,” Harry agrees. “Rose is adorable, I hope their second one inherits Hermione’s curls as well.”

“Those wild things?” Malfoy says sceptically.

“It makes her head all fluffy,” Harry agrees with a little fond sigh that makes Malfoy snort a laugh.

“Considering the mess on your head any child of yours should be richly blessed,” he drawls.

_Her_ children.

The thought shouldn’t make her ache but it does. Harry wouldn’t be having any children on her own – whatever Tom’s magic had done to her with his soul inside of her had effectively made her barren.

“I’m not going to have any,” Harry tells him, hand touching briefly against her belly.

His silvery eyes snags on the motion and something strange fills his gaze. “I’m sorry,” he tells her quietly.

“’s okay,” Harry tells him. “_Draco_.”

“If you say so, _Harry_.”

-

Harry spends the night with Draco and to her surprise she finds herself enjoying it – head thrown back and a laugh spilling over her lips when he makes a drawling comment of the woman who’d nearly fainted when Harry greeted her.

She’s not sure who of them is more surprised when Draco invites her to dance but she finds herself spun up on the dance floor, aware of the eyes upon her, always_always _watching but unable to care right here and now as she spins, dipping him to a sharp exhale of her name that makes her grin, more fiendish than she means as his eyes narrow.

It’s familiar – this competitive rise between them but it lacks the ugliness of their school days and she allows herself to be spun, threading back and pulling him along, closer, their steps dramatic and she almost regrets not wearing a dress, wondering how it would flare at her legs as she sneaks her hands down with a wink and pulls him up with steady Quidditch muscles to a widening of his eyes and a rising flush of his cheeks as she puts him down.

They’re both panting and laughing when they make their escape out, heady from their drinking and dancing until Draco pulls her to an abrupt stop in the middle of an empty hallway.

Harry knows it’s a terrible idea long before she looks up to see the mistletoe above them but then Draco’s hands are framing her face and she finds herself kissed, chest still heaving and filled to the brim with a strangely europhoric feeling that dies abruptly as the situation dawns on her.

Draco’s thumb strokes against her cheek but there’s a name ringing through her mind and a horrible knotted feeling that makes her step back from a second one.

She hears him call her name as she makes her escape but Harry can’t stop, can’t do this again.

She’d already lost Aster and Draco wasn’t even hers for the taking.

-

Neville is strangely quiet beside her, picking up on her turbolent mood from their abrupt department from the ball.

It's late, past midnight, and she shivers beside him - startling when he shrugs out of his robes and places them gently onto her shoulders.

"You want to talk about it?" he asks as she draws them closer around her.

"No," she says and he nods his agreement, looping their arms together.

"Come," he says. "Let's get a cup of hot chocolate. I bet McGonagall is still awake. Woman never sleeps."

And Harry allows herself to be pulled away from Draco and the memory of a shivering girl in the rain, breathing out as she clutched tight to her friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woof, Harry finds herself in quite the mess and Draco isn't making things very easy for her here. Or for himself, for that matter. 
> 
> Thank you so much for the response on the last chapter, I'll get back to you in a bit. I'm gonna edit this up, post it, drag myself off the bus and home and walk my dog and then I'll have regular wi-fi again. 
> 
> Bless be, I've missed it, for all that I love visiting my grandparents. 
> 
> I hang about tumblr as artsy-death. Let me know what you think down in comments, good and bad. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it!


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